The single-character display is primitive for a workgroup scanner. Although scanning speed to searchable PDF is respectable, it's well out of the top tier.

Bottom Line

The Plustek SmartOffice PS4080U provides good performance and a solid feature set as a document scanner for busy workgroups.

The Plustek SmartOffice PS4080U ($649) provides good speed and paper capacity as a desktop scanner designed for busy workgroups. Its software suite is well rounded, and its feature set includes a 100-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF). If your business needs to scan business cards or letter- or legal-size (or longer) paper in volume, the PS4080U gets the job done, with aplomb.

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DesignFinding a space for the PS4080U, which measures 9 by 12.6 by 9.1 inches (HWD), shouldn't be difficult. For a small scanner, it's capable of heavy-duty scanning, with a duty cycle of up to 4,000 sheets a day. The 100-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) is generous for a desktop scanner. It can scan letter- and legal-size paper, as well as banners up to 200 inches long. The paper path is straight-through; sheets fed into the ADF emerge at the scanner's base. It scans business cards, as well as plastic cards.

You can scan from the scanner's front panel using any of nine preset scanning profiles, which are configurable through the DocAction utility. The profiles include scanning to copy, to OCR, to email, to the cloud, to an application, to the business card reader, and scanning to several file formats.

You can toggle between profiles using the up and down arrow buttons located to the right of the Scan button; the profile number is shown on a 1-character LED display. Once you choose a profile, you just touch the Scan button to initiate the scan.

You can also initiate scans directly from nearly any program that has a scan command using the included Twain driver. You can also scan from PageManager—which lets you open scanned or saved documents in a variety of programs—from FineReader, or from BizCard.

Scan Speed The PS4080U has a rated speed of 40 pages per minute (ppm) for simplex (one-sided) scanning and 40ppm/80ipm (images per minute, where each side of a page counts as an image) for duplex, or two-sided scanning. scanned a 25-page test document in simplex mode to image PDF format at 35.7 pages per minute. In duplex, it scanned at 30.3ppm, or 60.6ipm. Although the speeds fall short of the scanner's rated speeds, they're still reasonably close.

In scanning the same 25-page/50-image document to searchable PDF, the preferred format for document archiving for many offices, the PS4080U averaged 1 minute 44 seconds. That's a respectable clip, but well out of the top tier. Several lower-priced scanners with lower speed ratings were much faster on our tests. For instance, the Editors' Choice Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500, rated at 25ppm, scanned the same test document to searchable PDF in 1 minute, 5 seconds, just 4 seconds slower than to image PDF. The Editors' Choice Canon ImageFormula DR-C125, also rated at 25ppm, did even better. It lost no time in scanning to a searchable PDF, scanning to both image and searchable formats in a minute flat.

OCR and Business Card Management In OCR testing using Abbyy FineReader 9, the PS4080U did well, reading our Arial test font down to 6 points, and Times New Roman down to 8 points, without error. It did well with most of our more obscure fonts as well. It did well in business-card reading using Bizcard Finder. About half of the cards were scanned and read to the appropriate fields, with most of the rest having no more than one or two errors.

The Plustek SmartOffice PS4080U provides rapid scanning for small or home offices. Although it turned in a respectable time in scanning to searchable PDF, it was slower than several lower-priced models such as the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 and the Canon imageFormula DR-C125. It did match them in OCR performance, though, and did well in business-card reading.

Small businesses seeking a zippy document scanner should consider the Plustek SmartOffice PS4080U. It has a good range of features, including a capacious ADF. Although it's well out of the top tier in scanning to searchable PDF, its speed is still quite respectable. It has a well-rounded software suite, and performance was good in both OCR and business-card reading. This scanner brings a lot to the table, and most of what it does, it does very well.

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About the Author

As Analyst for printers, scanners, and projectors, Tony Hoffman tests and reviews these products and provides news coverage for these categories. Tony has worked at PC Magazine since 2004, first as a Staff Editor, then as Reviews Editor, and more recently as Managing Editor for the printers, scanners, and projectors team.
In addition to editing, T... See Full Bio

Plustek SmartOffice PS4080U

Plustek SmartOffice PS4080U

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